Saturday, December 22, 2012

How to Create a More Loving Relationship

One of the most powerful things you can do to improve any relationship
and to increase the amount of happiness you feel is to not get involved
with your judgments. Be aware of judgmental thoughts (notice them when
they arise in your mind), accept that they are there (don't think they
shouldn't be there), and then choose to not dwell on them or give voice
to them. Judgments are probably the one thing that interferes most with
love and sustaining relationships. Judgments and the criticism that
flows from them kill love. Even small doses of criticism when engaged in
day in and day out can poison a relationship. They kill the love that
is there and leave anger, resentment, and hurt in its place. So the very
first principle for a more loving relationship is to ignore your judgments and don't express the criticism that is the natural result of judgment.

There are a several reasons why judgments are difficult to ignore. First
of all, because they arise in our mind, we assume our judgments are
true and meaningful representations of "our truth," while judgments
actually come from a small, petty, and unwise part of ourselves: our
conditioned self, or ego. Judgments never reflect our true nature, our
essential self, or what I like to call Essence.
We assume our judgments serve a purpose, but they don't achieve what we
hope they will achieve, which is changing someone or something. People
rarely change because they are judged, and if they do, that change comes
at the expense of love and trust. Judgments are a way of bullying our
partner to change in ways we want him or her to change, and that is not a
loving act.

If love and relationship are important to you, which they must be, since
you are reading this, love and relationship have to become more
important than having your way, more important than your conditioning
and how you like things done. The way you put love first is to refuse to
get involved in the judgments that pop into your mind and, above all,
don't speak them. The reason to not get involved with your judgments
mentally is that doing so leads to believing them and speaking them. The
more you dwell on a judgment, the more real and true it seems.
Judgments cause us to feel bad about someone (and bad about ourselves),
so we naturally want to do something to change that person so that we no
longer have to feel bad.

There is a better and more effective way to feeling good, and that is to realize that you
don't have to change anything or anyone except your relationship to
your own thoughts. All that has to change is your relationship to the
judgments that arise in your mind. You can believe them and try to
change the world to fit them, or you can see the truth about them, which
is that they have no intrinsic value or truth. If a judgment arises,
notice it, recognize it as a judgment and as therefore not worth your
attention, and then leave it alone. Put your attention on something
else, like something you appreciate about your partner, or about
anything else.

Another reason judgments are hard to ignore is that they give us a sense
of being right and being better than or superior to another. This
superiority and self-righteousness feels good to the ego. That is the
payoff for judging and one reason we judge and continue to do so even
when we see that judging and criticizing is not getting us what we want
from the other person, including that person's love. When we choose to
judge someone, we settle for this feeling of superiority and
self-righteousness instead of love and the good feelings that come from
being loving, kind, accepting, and understanding.

We tend to make this choice instead of being loving because it is our
default position as human beings; it is the path of least resistance. We
are programmed to not make the most loving choice, oddly enough. So to
get what we all really want, which is to be loving and to be loved, we
have to learn to overcome some of the negative programming we have that
keeps us making choices that are destructive to our relationships.

A big reason we don't ignore judgments is that most of us are not that
aware of what is going on in our mind. We tend to accept the thoughts
that go through our mind and act on them or speak them without
questioning them first. We don't tend to ask ourselves if what we're
thinking is true or useful. We often don't question what the result will
be if we believe our thoughts and act on or give voice to them. The
trouble with this is that our thoughts are often unkind and untrue, and
responding to them without evaluating them first results in a lot of
trouble and pain to ourselves and others. Becoming more loving is
largely a matter of becoming more conscious of what we are thinking, and
then choosing a more loving response than the automatic one, which is
likely to be the ego's response.

The ego is a primitive aspect of ourselves that is shortsighted and out
for itself. It doesn't see the whole picture or value love's very
important role in life. It is, in fact, the enemy of love. The ego's
point of view as well as our conditioning are reflected in our thoughts
about ourselves, others, and life. The ego's voice is the mental
commentary we all are so familiar with, which seems at times like our
own voice and at other times like someone else speaking to us. This
aspect of the mind that chatters on and on is often called the egoic mind, and it reflects the false self, not Essence.

Another thing that makes judgments difficult to ignore is that we assume
that judgments and criticism are a perfectly acceptable and valid form
of communication, since they are so common. It is part of our culture to
judge, to express opinions about anything and everything. It almost
seems like it's our duty to judge, as if we are not being discriminating
if we don't point out the flaws of something or someone. However, the
truth is that pointing out flaws, criticizing, and having an opinion are
the easiest things in the world to do. What's difficult is being
loving, accepting, and moving beyond our judgments, beliefs, and other
conditioned ways of being. That is our challenge as human beings—to
become more loving, not to complain, judge, and try to change others to
suit our preferences. Loving is a matter of moving beyond our personal
preferences and judgments enough to let love flow to another, enough to
allow ourselves to see another's beauty, not the flaws.

The truth is that judgments don't just hurt others, they hurt us to have
them. When we are feeling judgmental and critical, we feel small,
petty, unhappy, angry, and unkind, even though we may enjoy the feeling
of being superior or right. Judging and criticizing others leaves us
feeling bad about ourselves, and this may drive us to tear others down
even more, creating a vicious cycle of negativity. This is not how we
want to feel, and it isn't how we want to make others feel; and yet,
that is what happens. Our judgments cause us and those we're judging to
feel unhappy and unloving. That is the opposite of what we all want!

Notice how you feel the next time you catch yourself judging and
criticizing someone, including those you aren't even close to, such as
people in the media. Judgment and criticism don't feel good, and you
don't have to feel that way. We have the power to choose not to judge
and criticize (internally or externally), and when we make that choice,
it is possible to get in touch with who we really are—with Essence.
Essence is an experience of contentment, peace, joy, happiness, awe,
love, gratitude, and wonderment. That is who we really are, and the only
thing that can obscure our true nature is believing the ego's negative
evaluations and stories about everyone and everything. Change in the
world can still happen without our judgments because the wisdom that is
our true nature moves us to act wisely and lovingly in the world. Our
judgments only interfere with that.

Because judging and criticizing is the path of least resistance, it can
take some practice to choose to be loving and accepting over the usual
criticisms. But the more you choose love, the easier it becomes to
choose it again, and the weaker the habit of criticism becomes. If you
fully absorb this first principle, it will change your life. You don't
need your judgments. You have never needed your judgments. They have
never served you, but only obscured and undermined the love, wisdom, and
happiness that are possible. Love and happiness are possible because it
is your true nature to love and to experience happiness, peace, and
joy.

Practices: To be done throughout the week:

1. Whenever you feel an urge to judge your partner, examine the
conditioning (e.g., desires, beliefs, opinions, preferences, fears,
expectations, demands) behind that judgment. Every judgment is a
disguised "should" or "should not." What "should" or "should not" are
you imposing on your partner? Our judgments are an attempt to get our
partner to change his or her behavior so that we don't have to feel the
discomfort that our own conditioning is causing. When others do things
we don't like, that is, when they don't conform to our conditioning, we
feel afraid, angry, ashamed, or embarrassed. In an attempt to get rid of
these feelings, we try to change our partner by judging or criticizing
him or her: "If only he or she would change, I wouldn't feel this way!"
Notice how your judgments are an attempt to ease the discomfort that is
caused by your own conditioning—not by your partner, but by your desires
and demands that your partner be a certain way.

2. If a judgment arises, just let it be there without doing anything
about it. What is that like to just let that judgment be there? Your ego
won't want you to stay with this exercise. It may try to talk you out
of just being with the judgment, or it might offer a more concealed
judgment or one that sounds a little nicer. Are there feelings that
accompany this judgment? Just let them be here as well without doing
anything else with them. The more you practice noticing your judgments
and feelings and just letting them be there without doing anything else,
the weaker these judgments and feelings will become. What empowers our
thoughts and feelings is acting them out. If you don't want to be at the
mercy of your negative thoughts (judgments) and feelings, then just let
them come and go in your mind without identifying with them or giving
voice to them. Don't fight with them or push them away, but allow them
the space to come and go, as all thoughts naturally do. Your thoughts c!
ome out of nowhere and disappear into nowhere. You have the ability to
empower them by giving them your attention or dis-empower them by not
giving them your attention, which is accomplished by giving your
attention to something else.

Explorations: Do just one of these explorations a day. When
you've finished all three explorations, go back to each one and see if
you can uncover any further insights.

1. There are certain judgments and criticisms you have about your
partner that come up again and again and are probably causing conflict,
stress, and a shutting down of love between you. What are they? Take
some time to contemplate this. Make a list of them. What if you didn't
have these judgments and the feelings that go with them? What would that
be like? And what if you never expressed your judgments or criticisms?
What would that be like? How would you feel? How would that change your
relationship?

2. Look carefully at any resistances you may have to ignoring and not
speaking the judgments and criticisms you have. What are you afraid will
happen if you give up judging and criticizing? Are you afraid you will
be a doormat, you will be unhappy, you will be taken advantage of, you
will not be in control, you will lose power in the relationship? Is it
your way of being strong? Is it your way of being smart? Is it your way
of proving that you are an individual? How do you believe your judgments
are serving you? What are you getting out of judging and criticizing?
Spend at least ten minutes contemplating this question because it is a
very important one. There are reasons, although mistaken ones, for
clinging to our judgments and criticisms. Once we really see how
ineffective and destructive our judgments are, they lose their power to
capture our attention and make us do their bidding.

3. What are the negative ramifications of judging and criticizing? Does
your partner fire back with criticisms? Does your partner withdraw,
disengage? How does judging and criticizing make you feel about
yourself? What is your self-image like when you are criticizing someone?
Are you The Bitch, The Complainer, The Whiner, The Martyr, The Wronged
One, The Raging Maniac, The Self-Righteous One, The Mother Hen, The
Drama Queen, The Emasulator, The Boss, The Avenger, The Victim, or some
other image? Our ego takes on these personas, but we are not our ego,
and we can choose to not identify with and act out these personas. Our
judgments cause negative feelings within ourselves and others—anger,
resentment, hatred, desire for revenge, and even guilt and shame—and
negative feelings are not only exhausting, but also can lead to physical
illness. They shut down our own heart and the hearts of those around
us. What price are you paying for your judgments and criticism? What is
the cost!
to your relationships? Is it worth it?